On Deadliest Catch, the fishing vessel the Saga has been through some close calls; not even counting the literal saga of disasters it’s been through in its lifetime before the show.
On Deadliest Catch‘s 16th season, the rudder failed on the Saga in episode 19, and the crew had to jump in the icy-cold waters to fix it. Additionally, at the beginning of season 17, the Saga was nowhere to be found; fans thought maybe it sunk somewhere out to sea. But, the little boat persevered and showed up a few episodes later.
That’s the great thing about the Saga: it just won’t be stopped.
In 2015, season 11 of Deadliest Catch, the Saga was fishing in the Bering Sea when two rogue 40-foot waves hit the boat almost simultaneously from either side. According to Inside Edition, it was Jake Anderson’s first time out on the Saga, before he became the boat’s captain, and the experience “shook him to his core.” After the waves hit, Nick Tokman, a deckhand on the Saga, said, “I’ve never had that happen to me before.”
‘Deadliest Catch’: Near Mutiny on the Saga
The boat almost capsized, and the Saga could have lost all of her crew members. After the waves hit, the crew nearly mutinied. Then-captain Elliott Neese asked over the PA, “What am I supposed to do?” which doesn’t exactly inspire confidence. Fans brought that front and center in the comments on the YouTube clip. “Can’t imagine Phil Harris or Sig freaking out like that,” one fan wrote. In the episode, Neese was followed to the lower decks by a crew member and shouted at about the waves, the danger of continuing to pull pots in that weather. One deckhand shouted, “Shut her down, or take me into town. It’s not worth killing someone over.”
Neese ends the clip by claiming, “If anything happened to anyone I’d be sick to my stomach, it’d be the end of my career.”
Elliott Neese’s career on Deadliest Catch did end after season 11; not because he lost anyone, but because he went to rehab. As reported by Inquisitr in 2016, Neese left the show to complete rehab for drug and alcohol addiction. Jake Anderson took his place on the Saga starting in season 12, and immediately refurbished the boat and the crew to get rid of any reminders of her old captain. Anderson said he wanted to rid the boat of “any remnants of the past.”
Deadliest Catch airs on Discovery Channel at 8 pm ET. Two episodes remain in season 17.
